Battery. Possession. Criminal damage. Racially aggravated public order offence. Albert Bowers – one of PC Andrew Harper’s teenage killers – has a long and disturbing rap sheet.

All this, we know.

One entry on his criminal ‘CV’, however, has gone largely under the radar until this week. Bowers also has a conviction for sexual assault, something which is considered a taboo even in the lawless Berkshire traveller community that produced him and his accomplices, and where criminality is endemic and encouraged. No further details are known about the incident.

Bowers, 17 then and 24 now, was under 18 when he committed the offence and is not named in public records because children who come before the youth courts have the right to anonymity.

Doesn’t the latest revelation, though, regardless of the precise circumstances, make it all the more inexcusable that he was until recently considered fit for early release?

Admittedly, this is no longer going to happen – anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, have been excluded from Labour’s scheme – following a campaign by PC Harper’s family, friends and colleagues.

But his loved ones, especially his widow Lissie and mother Debbie Adlam, said they had been ‘re-traumatised’ by having to fight to block the release of Bowers and Jessie Cole, also 17 at the time, who were in the getaway car that dragged the ‘exemplary’ officer to his death on the A4 Bath Road in Berkshire on the night of August 15, 2019, after he’d attended the scene of a burglary with a colleague four and a half hours beyond the end of their shift.

How could they not have been, given the horrific circumstances of PC Harper’s death.

PC Andrew Harper and his wife Lissie had been together since they were teenagers and got married just four weeks before his death

Albert Bowers was seen sticking out his tongue and ‘flipping Vs’ (as much as his handcuffs would allow) at onlookers during an early court appearance

Bowers is serving his sentence at HMP Frankland, a high-security prison in County Durham, which houses 850 prisoners across eight wings

He was pulled along the road for more than a mile after he became trapped behind the vehicle – driven by 19-year-old ringleader Henry Long – which was towing a stolen quad bike. The music in the fleeing Seat Toledo was turned up as it ‘zigzagged’ at high speed, shredding the uniform of PC Harper, who sustained catastrophic injuries. He died naked apart from his socks and boots.

These distressing details are being repeated here only to highlight why more than a million people signed a petition to prevent his killers being freed.

The fact that Bowers is also a convicted sex offender has only added to the controversy surrounding the early release of prisoners to prevent overcrowded jails running out of space.

Many believe the gang got off lightly anyway. Bowers and Cole got 13 years for manslaughter, and Long, 16 years. They were all cleared of murder.

Some of you might have seen the photograph of Bowers sticking out his tongue and making a V-sign with the fingers of both hands as he was led away from his first court appearance. His smirking face has become synonymous with one of the most shocking – and wicked – crimes of recent times and epitomised the trio’s total absence of remorse.

That despicable, total lack of contrition has continued, the Daily Mail has learned. In fact, if anything, he is still revelling in the notoriety the high-profile case has afforded him in prison.

Bowers is serving his sentence at HMP Frankland, a high-security, category A prison in County Durham, which houses 850 prisoners across eight wings.

The jail has the macabre nickname ‘Monster Mansion’ because ‘lifers’ include serial killer Levi Bellfield and former Met officer Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard. It is also where Soham’s Ian Huntley was fatally battered with a metal bar in February.

In 2011, two prisoners disembowelled a fellow inmate and planned to eat his liver. Bowers is not out of place in Frankland, according to a prison source, which is telling in itself.

‘He is a really nasty piece of work,’ he said. ‘I would go so far as to say that he is evil, completely devoid of any morals or any humanity.

‘I’ve met a lot of young lads who are doing time for killing someone and most, at some point, reflect on their actions and regret what they did. I’ve had prisoners admit to me that they have nightmares about the person they killed and are haunted by the death, but they can’t ever show that to other inmates because it might be viewed as weakness.

‘But not Bowers. He just doesn’t care about what he has done. He has never shown a moment’s regret for killing PC Andrew Harper.

‘That image of him laughing as he was being taken off to jail perfectly sums him up. He is a horrible, horrible individual.

‘If it was up to me, he would never be allowed out because he is always going to be a danger.

‘He will kill again at some point in his life when he is eventually released. I’m sure of that.’

Bowers stood out from the moment he arrived at Frankland. There, he has his own cell with a TV, toilet and wash basin and access to computer games and an in-cell telephone with a list of people he is allowed to contact which is checked by security on arrival. Amazon parcels arrive regularly from his supportive family and friends.

‘Most inmates just want a quiet life, do their time with as little hassle as possible, and get out,’ the source added.

‘When Bowers first arrived in Frankland he acted as though he was king of the wing because he killed a policeman. To be honest, he wore his [PC Harper’s] death almost like a medal. He thought that would give him huge status. He’s a big lad and is handy with his fists, but in prison, especially in Frankland, you are always going to come up against someone who is tougher, more violent or doesn’t care about the consequences.

‘Bowers was confronted by one very tough con who was doing life for murder. Bowers immediately backed down, which revealed to everyone that he was mostly mouth and made himself quite vulnerable.

‘But he is now protected by some very nasty travellers. I’m not even sure they like him that much, but there is a sense of loyalty among the traveller community.’

Bowers is ‘a really nasty piece of work’, according to a prison source who said the convicted killer is ‘completely devoid of any morals or any humanity’

Bowers (left) and Jessie Cole (centre) leaving Reading Magistrates Court after an appearance

The irony is that sex offenders can expect to be ostracised in traveller communities. This self-evidently did not happen to Albert Bowers – either inside or outside the walls of Frankland. Bowers, like his co-defendants, came from a parallel universe to that of PC Harper, who was just 28 when he died, and was affectionately known as ‘Harps’.

Close to his family, he was a ‘country boy’, a man who loved picnics and walking, a man who could fix everything, who loved wildlife, who raised money for children with cancer.

He was married just four weeks before his death. He and Lissie had been together since they were teenagers. On the day of his wedding, he had handed his bride a message in a card: ‘Life is slippery. Here, take my hand.’

By the end of the day, he had cut the cake next to a sign saying: ‘Happily ever Harper.’

At his funeral his widow spoke movingly of the ‘sweet, lanky, red-faced boy passing me notes in class, to the strong and loyal man you grew to be’.

Heartbreaking.

His killers, by contrast, lived in social housing but had links to the Four Houses Corner travellers’ site in Ufton Nervet, a village in Berkshire around eight miles from Reading.

Bowers, who was taken out of school aged six, could not read or write. He supported himself by stealing (particularly quad bikes and farm machinery) and occasionally working as a landscape gardener, in between court appearances. The car involved in the death of PC Harper was tracked down to the traveller site where ten male members of the encampment were initially arrested.

Officers complained the investigation was frustrated by a lack of cooperation from within the traveller community. Hardly surprising. Items linking Bowers and the others to the crime were reportedly burned.

Footage from an early court appearance in Reading just a month after PC Harper’s death show them larking around. It was here that the notorious photograph was taken, of Bowers sticking out his tongue and ‘flipping Vs’ (as much as his handcuffs would allow) at onlookers.

At one point, when the jury was being shown distressing footage of PC Harper being dragged to his death, Bowers fell asleep.

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When the jury delivered its verdicts, clearing them of murder, the three killers could be seen on the videolink from HMP Belmarsh, backslapping each other and cheering.

Their jubilation was echoed in the public gallery, where their friends and family cheered.

Afterwards, the family of PC Harper led calls for the traveller site to be dismantled.

The occupants were accused, among other things, of celebrating what were perceived to be the ‘lenient’ sentences their ‘boys’ received and taunted the police over the killing.

Instead, Four Houses Corner received a £4.2million taxpayer- funded revamp courtesy of Liberal Democrat-controlled West Berkshire Council, despite objections from police and residents.

The council defended the revamp, saying: ‘We need to deliver traveller accommodation and ensure we meet legal requirements . . . since the site reopened, no specific concerns regarding site management have been raised directly with the council.’

Only in soft-touch Britain.

In his sentencing remarks at the conclusion of the trial, Mr Justice Edis said: ‘Nothing I can do, or could have done if there had been a conviction for murder, can restore Andrew Harper to his loving wife and family, or to the public he served so well. His devastating loss in these terrible circumstances will follow his family for ever and they have the profound sympathy of the court and the whole nation in their loss.

‘The victim personal statements are deeply moving and I have read them with care and listened intently to what was said in this courtroom.’

Had Bowers’ early release not been blocked he could have been a familiar face again at Four Houses Corner as early as October 1 when the first tranche of 4,500 prisoners – including violent offenders, domestic abusers and stalkers – will be freed. But now he will remain behind bars until around March 2029 when he and Cole will have completed two-thirds of their sentence.

Is this justice for what happened to PC Harper?

Surely there can’t be many who think so.